Originally posted on Dreamwidth, 2023-12-10.
Not for the first time, the FF16 update that came out this weekend was supposed to include the correction of “minor text issues”, but no official source has been kind enough to specify what those issues actually are, much to the chagrin to those of us who are obsessively trying to archive all the written content in the game (or is that just me? Surely not …). I always wonder if they’ve gone through and fixed the various tomes typos, but I checked one of the ones I remembered and it’s still there, so I guess not. I do see, however, that they’ve changed the spelling of Harpocrates’ surname: previously Hyperboreos, now Hyperboreios. I assume the latter is more in keeping with whatever Greek source this actually comes from, but it makes me wonder how long these changes will go on. Think of all those resources that now have the name in the “wrong” spelling! This game’s been out for nearly six months; how long are they going to keep tweaking it? Isn’t there a point at which you just have to accept the inaccuracies, come up with some in-world explanation for them, and let the game live its own life?
The new inner voices feature is fantastic, obviously. I haven’t yet explored them fully, but two things have struck me so far: firstly, Torgal’s thoughts about his companions are a. often related to smells and b. the cutest thing I have yet seen on this earth. Secondly, it’s interesting that while most people’s thoughts towards Crow and Tett are in the vein of “oh, those wee rascals, they need to behave themselves”, Dion is absolutely smitten with them, which is making me see him in a whole new light. I think I need to accept the fact that one of my blorbi is somebody who canonically likes children, something I refuse to relate to.
Ok so is this new content about how artificial intelligence is bad? Some tongue-in-cheek tinhatting from me here, but you know, the tower itself is basically the villain, at least in combat terms. Is this the FF16 dev team telling us that humans/similarly sentient beings need to stop creating more and more powerful technology just for the sake of it, and give some thought to the societal consequences of their actions? Could there be anything more timely?
In related news, my “who wrote the book” theory is that we, the player, wrote the book. We witnessed the story, we survived the end, and we emerged into a new sphere with all the memories of Clive’s doings to look back on. (Not sure why we called ourselves “Joshua Rosfield” though, smh.) The game is supposed to be set in some mythical, fantastical time – the description of the final quest says that Clive’s vanquishing of Ultima “will bring the age of gods and myth to its close and welcome in a new era of reason”. So as I see it, we emerge from the dark fantasy setting of the game’s events, and into this new age where, as we see in the epilogue, people don’t believe in magic, and dogs are routinely named Bahamut. It’s plausible that the setting of the game is meant to be in our own (imagined?) past, a bygone age that people now allude to only in fairytales.
But then, of course, if the Fallen represent the hubris of humanity, this non-magical, rational society comes not only after the events of the game but also before it, in a sort of time loop: age of reason, followed by age of magic, followed by age of reason again. And that mirrors the structure of the game, where you can replay certain scenes as much as you want and eventually redo the whole thing on New Game+. It’s also reflected in the fact that two of the strongest pieces of gear in the game, ones that the player will probably have equipped for the final battle on their first playthrough, are named after the ouroboros. Their descriptions:
Ouroboros [belt]
“So shall the end feed a new beginning.”
Having found this leather belt adorned with the ancient seal of the Devourer of Worlds, your search for the perfect waistwear is over. Or has it just begun?
and:
The Sons of Ouroboros [vambraces]
“Two sons did the Devourer beget, and like their father would they look ever forward to the past.”
Upon placing the smooth leather cuffs upon your wrists, they cinch tight to your skin in an oddly warm embrace. Removing them requires more effort than it should.
I will never be expressing any of these thoughts on any kind of discord server because if my hot FF16 summer taught me anything, it’s that Discord utterly lacks the capacity to encourage nuanced discussion. I made the mistake of looking at the large D/T server for the first time in days earlier, and saw something that was patently untrue being stated as if it was basically fact and then being agreed with and responded to enthusiastically by at least one other, and damn I hate seeing misinformation taking hold like this but it’s really not the done thing to come in hours later and be like “hiya, local pedant here to tell you this is bullshit”. (Also when the person who said the thing is someone I actually did call out on something similar before … yeah, I should definitely houl my whisht in this situation.) My Christmas present to myself will be quietly exiting this server once the fic exchange is over!